Recently I was priv­i­leged to attend a Mem­oir Work­shop Week­end run by Josiane Behmoiras at a coun­try prop­erty west of Gee­long. It was fab­u­lous to spend time and work with like-minded strong inter­est­ing women, espe­cially Josiane, a men­tor of con­sid­er­able exper­tise. There was much con­struc­tive guid­ance and tuition and time for quiet writ­ing and shar­ing. Ter­rific, intel­li­gent and stim­u­lat­ing con­ver­sa­tion re our com­mon, but indi­vid­ual projects, essen­tially our lives.

The back­drop of nur­tur­ing coun­try hos­pi­tal­ity pro­vided by our lovely hosts Chris and Peter com­pli­mented the ambience.

I returned home with new tools and a dif­fer­ent, but excit­ing mind­set re the devel­op­ment of my mem­oir story. Josiane is a skilled teacher, writer and com­mu­ni­ca­tor and delight­ful com­pany. I look for­ward to another enrich­ing work­shop with her.

Anne-Maree Hone, April 2016

Thanks for a ter­rific week­end. It was a plea­sure to be in such good com­pany to work through the issues of struc­ture and beginnings. I finally got to the nub of my story.

Siob­han Sheri­dan, April 2016

The week­end course offered so much more that I wasn’t expect­ing and that made the week­end so spe­cial, such as great peo­ple, who made me feel sup­ported in my recount­ing my expe­ri­ences, yummy food and good con­ver­sa­tional over meals, and a beau­ti­ful set­ting, both house and land­scape. Tuto­ri­als pro­vided excel­lent guid­ance and teach­ing that hit the tar­get with respect to my project and began to clar­ify so much that I had been wran­gling over.

Kate, April 2016

Josi’s week­end work­shop was superb, most help­ful. I am still putting down the first draft, and it was all look­ing a bit daunt­ing. After the week­end, I now have a poten­tial struc­ture for the mem­oir, includ­ing a poten­tial begin­ning and end­ing (which I didn’t have before the work­shop). Josi’s help in how to con­struct scenes was invalu­able. In fact, all of the exer­cises that we did were most help­ful – a num­ber of things that I wrote dur­ing the week­end will go straight into the mem­oir. Josi has a nice com­bi­na­tion of encour­age­ment, con­struc­tive crit­i­cism and pro­duc­tive left-field sug­ges­tions. She goes beyond the call of duty. Thanks to the weekend’s work, I feel invig­o­rated and much clearer – now I just need to carve out more time to keep on writing!

David Morawetz, June 2016

Special thanks to Josi for her lovely approach, and endless knowledge and advice on all things writing! It is such a warm and encouraging environment for learning the many, many tactics for good writing. These weekends give me such a shot in the arm and make me think that maybe one day I just might achieve that distant goal called publication! This latest session, covering voice, was so brilliant, and I’ve come away with excerpts that I wrote over the two days that I will use in my manuscript as well as valuable techniques to achieve something that needs to be woven seamlessly into the story.

Kate, October 2016

During my first weekend with Josiane, I clarified the beginning and the end of my memoir. During my second weekend, I clarified its structure. These three major items had all been a real problem – such a relief to have them solved. I have also come away with about 2,000 words that will go into the memoir. On both weekends, I found the writing exercises extremely helpful. Thank you so much!

David Morawetz, October 2016

Last week­end was my sec­ond week­end mem­oir writ­ing work­shop with Josiane, and each time I have come away delighted to have found a much-needed solu­tion to a par­tic­u­lar chal­lenge I was fac­ing in my writ­ing. Josiane’s feed­back is both insight­ful and encour­ag­ing. Through­out the week­end, Josiane ensured every­one had an oppor­tu­nity to share their work and ideas, and through her gift of hos­pi­tal­ity cre­ated an atmos­phere of learn­ing that was relaxed and enjoy­able. These work­shops are unlike any other writ­ers’ work­shops I have ever attended.

Trish O’Connor, Feb­ru­ary 2017

I recently attended a Mem­oir Writ­ing Work­shop facil­i­tated by Josiane Behmoiras. The focus of the week­end was twofold; putting the present into the past and devel­op­ing char­ac­ters but I came away with so much more than two new skills. Josi’s work­shops are a com­bi­na­tion of indi­vid­ual and group exer­cises designed specif­i­cally to aid the devel­op­ment of your mem­oir. Each work­shop is held over a week­end in beau­ti­fully selected accom­mo­da­tions. Par­tic­i­pants share meals together as well as tute­lage and this encour­ages the feel­ing of com­mu­nity and cama­raderie. Josi’s warmth imme­di­ately puts you at ease and she makes sure the envi­ron­ment is com­fort­able and sup­port­ive. I gained much insight from her exper­tise and learned some excel­lent tools that have allowed me to inject some of what I’d been strug­gling to include in my story. I also got to dip my toes in the ocean and sit by an open fire — two of my favourite things — and I’m sure this helped the cre­ative juices flow! It was a fan­tas­tic week­end of learn­ing and laugh­ing and I am very much look­ing for­ward to the next one.

Thanks Josi!

Tash Aga­fonoff, Feb­ru­ary 2017

I attended the writ­ing work­shop week­end at the rec­om­men­da­tion of a fel­low writer. My mem­oir about the inner dia­logue of an anorexic wog child, in the 70s has been chal­leng­ing to pen. Ini­tially, I felt ner­vous shar­ing my per­sonal expe­ri­ence with what is now cat­e­gorised as a men­tal ill­ness. Idyl­li­cally located at the edge of a national park, by the fire and around the table, we began a series of writ­ing exer­cises. Their uncon­ven­tional nature helped us to con­nect to our voice. Shar­ing became fun, cri­tique safe and my con­fi­dence in my abil­ity to tell my story grew. Josi ran the ses­sions well and gave us help­ful advice and guid­ance. Away from our nor­mal lives, we entered the writ­ers space more eas­ily. Writ­ing in the com­pany of other writ­ers is a sacred space. I hap­pily rec­om­mend the work­shop­ping weekend.

Mer­ima Jack­son, June 2017